6. Stranger Danger

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A new week began with a new child being brought to the Willow Creek Orphanage. This time, there would be no more black hair (because I say so!). The little one's name is Ross and he is a Goofball with the Whiz Kid Aspiration.

Having been so focused on the children, Jane hadn't had much time to stay fit lately. So, she bought a treadmill. That way, she could use her breaks during the day to get a workout in.

Tiffany paid a visit to the Orphanage, not long after leaving to pursue her Adult life. It made Jane very glad that her children felt like this had been a real home for them and that they still came to visit.

Meanwhile, Bradly had been devoting his time to a new hobby: playing the guitar. He was getting good at it, too!

Jane, too, was trying something new, dabbling at painting.

And Daniela was attempting carpentry. It seemed like a good activity to blow off some steam after an intense school day.

 

Speaking of Daniela, it was time for her to age up and venture into Adulthood, as well. I added the Childish trait and she got the Nerd Brain Aspiration. 

So, the next day, Daniela left the Willow Creek Orphanage to set out on the journey of Adulthood.

  

Bradly followed suit, aging up into an Adult only one day later. He added the Glutton trait to his evil and Genious traits. His aspiration is to have a Big, Happy Family. In two days, the Willow Creek Orphanage says goodbye to two of its orphans. Wishing them all the luck in the world!

What had begun as a great and joyous week at the Willow Creek Orphanage, couldn't possibly get better. But Jane wanted to try. She'd been thinking about it for a while, but there had been so many kids at the Orphanage that she feared she wouldn't be able to manage them all alone. She'd always wanted to take them on a group outing and since the weather was nice, it was the perfect time to plan something like this.

She decided she'd take the kids to the park. Since there were only 4 kids presently living at the Orphanage, it wouldn't be as hard to watch them all. It was the perfect opportunity for her to do something like this, since soon enough more children would surely arrive at the Orphanage.

So, that Friday, after all the children came home from school, she took them to the Willow Creek Park. The Orphanage had every commodity for the children, including a garden with a pool and monkey bars for the children to play, but she thought it was important for them to get out a bit, as well.

 

The trip began as successfully as she'd expected. Even the older kids were enjoying the afternoon spent outdoors. But Jane could never have predicted how that day would turn out.

A desperate lady had arrived at the park. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten there. She had felt numb after coming out of the doctor's office. Deep in thought, she had walked off, not noticing where she was going. But it must have been a sign from the universe. It must have been fate.

Juanita (that was her name) had left her doctor's appointment in tears, in a state of shock and depression. She'd been in to see her fertility doctor. All the hope and effort she'd put in had amounted to nothing. The doctor had told her that her eggs weren't viable and she shouldn't keep pursuing her desire to have biological children. Maybe she should explore other options, her doctor had told her.

And now that she arrived at the park, it seemed like those other options were presenting themselves to her. She noticed a group of children accompanied by a lady who must be about her age. Surely, those children couldn't be hers. She wasn't old enough to have teenagers. Juanita decided to sit on a bench that was closer to where the kids were playing and began listening in.

"Ms. Jane, thanks for bringing us to the park!" Said one of the children to the lady. "I mean, we love the Orphanage, but today has been so much fun!"

She heard the lady who she now knew was called Jane respond happily, but she didn't care to listen to what she was saying. She was focusing on what the child had said. They were from a local orphanage. All these children had been abandoned by parents who surely didn't want them, while she, who so desperately wanted to have a child, couldn't. That really angered her. What could she have ever done to deserve this?

She should have left then, to avoid any more hurt, but she couldn't get herself to move. She kept watching the children.

She'd heard awful stories about orphanages and how the children always hated living in those kinds of places. These kids looked happy. They were so happy to be out at the park, that she convinced herself that they must be unhappy at the orphanage. A child couldn't possibly like living in such a place - they were bound to want a family who would love them and take them in.

 

Engrossed by her depression, she did the unthinkable. She saw the sweetest-looking little girl venturing away from the group to fetch a toy that had been thrown too far. Something took over her and made her follow the little girl into a secluded part of the park, covered by trees and bushes so that the orphanage lady couldn't see her anymore. Before she knew it, she'd grabbed the girl in her arms and was carrying her towards the exit.

But Juanita hadn't thought this through. The child wasn't small enough to be hidden easily and she was kicking and screaming from the moment Juanita had picked her up.

  

By this time, Jane had realized that Margarita (or Maggie, like they usually called her) hadn't returned. She knew better than to ignore it and immediately told the teenagers to look after the younger children. She then ran after Maggie.

Jane's heart began pounding when she couldn't find the girl and she quickly looked around the area to see where she could have run off to. That was when she heard Maggie's screams and she sprinted in the direction of the sound. Jane was getting ready to fight some pedophile but when she finally found the girl, what she saw was a scared-looking Maggie running towards her and a lady standing next to her, crying her eyes out. The woman could only say "I'm sorry" to Jane repeatedly, in between her sobs.

Meanwhile, the police had been called as the other people in the park were alarmed by all the ruckus and the lady was taken away to the police station, still sobbing. She was in shock at her own actions and wasn't able to say much at the scene.

Jane took the children home and the afternoon at the park was cut short by that horrible turn of events. Little Maggie was very shaken and Jane had to calm her down and put her to bed, for she clearly needed to rest after what had happened. The other children were all visibly concerned as well. They had never seen a crime and an arrest happen.

At dinner time, they all gathered at the table. Jane told them that what had happened that day had been awful and just showed how careful children should be these days. However, she also told them that she thought the lady wasn't really dangerous and she must have been having a really bad day, which made her do something crazy.

The children were all wondering what had happened to the lady at the police-station. Had she been arrested? Jane explained everything to them.
"The police called me a while ago to inform me that the lady was sent home. She had had a really bad day and had discovered she couldn't have children so, in a desperate act to become a mother, she tried to take a child home. She wasn't really thinking. She was just so depressed that she did something rash, which is why she was crying so much at the park. She couldn't believe what she had done."

The children all listened attentively and they all felt sorry for the lady, although they knew what she had done was awful and had given them (and especially Maggie) quite a scare.

"So, I believe we all learned a lesson today. We never know what's out there. We can never be too careful and you should always remember what I told you since you were little: never trust strangers. But we've also learned that sometimes good people do bad things when they're having a hard time, so we need to know how to forgive them," Jane told them.

Dinner wasn't the loud party it usually was, that day. But it was a good thing another child was coming to the Orphanage on the next day. That would provide the children with a distraction from everything that had happened as they met the new kid and showed him around. They always loved the day a new kid arrived.

However, Jane couldn't help but think what if little Maggie had been taken away from her...

To be continued....

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THE DOUBLE LEGACY CHALLENGE

This legacy challenge features TWO founders. They are two orphan brothers/sisters who, having been inseparable and alone since they were children, want to have a big happy family - they want to create their legacy together!

GOAL:

Essentially, this challenge is about one big family with two founders who are siblings. Their heirs will be cousins. And they will all live happily together in the same house! This is about having fun, so you can set the number of generations you want to play your legacy for (example: 10 is the usual for legacy challenges).

RULES:

- Start with two siblings. They got out of foster care as they reached the Young Adult age, so they have little to no possessions. And the money they have is what's left from their teenage part-time jobs. Begin with 2000§ (1000§ per brother), so that they can buy the bare essentials (use the money cheat to set your money at 2000§).
(Note: The lot can be whatever size you want, but the bigger the better, obviously, since you're gonna have a big family). 

- They must marry townies/NPC's (not sims you create).

- The family members (founders and spouses, even if they aren't the last generation's heir) must all live in the legacy household, until they die. The brothers who aren't heirs should move out at the Young Adult stage when the heir is picked to make room for more children.

- A difficulty factor is the maximum number of sims per household (which is eight). In the second generation, having the parents, heirs and their spouses all living in the legacy lot means they will reach the maximum number of sims allowed in the household (unless if you decide to use a Mod for this*). You can always wait for the parents to die to be able to have more than one child and use that time to skill your sim or work on their careers, for example.

- Your children's traits have to be randomly picked. You can do it with the founders as well, if you wish. You should complete your founder's/heirs' Aspirations.

- You can do whatever you like to make money: get a job, sell things, etc. Your choice!

- No mods or cheats allowed, apart from the Full house mod if you choose to use it and the money cheat at the beginning to set your money at 2000§.

EXTRAS:

*Mod - Full House mod by TwistedMexi at Modthesims (be careful with it, since the limit is there for a reason! The more sims in a household, the bigger toll it takes on your computer).
*Money Cheat - sims.modify_funds -[amount you need to reduce to make 2000§].

You are welcome to play around with the rules and even make up a point system if you wish (I didn't add that because I prefer just playing challenges for the fun of it). If you test it out, let me know if there are any changes or improvements that could be made! 

Have fun!

5. (Not so) Mysterious Aging

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Note: As I accessed my game, I realized I had been playing another family and I forgot to turn Aging Off for the non-active sims.

So, where we stand now, most of the kids entered teenage-hood and some of them even went and got jobs (even Jane went to the Comedy Career; they're going to quit - oops).

Also, this chapter was meant to focus a bit more on the children's personalities, so although they were autonomous, I'll start helping them achieve their whims.

Presenting the recently-grown teenagers:

Daniela - She now has the Nerd Brain Aspiration; Traits: Bookworm and Outgoing.

Terra has the Master Chef Aspiration. Traits: Foodie and Music Lover.

Bradly has the Big Happy Family Aspiration. Traits: Genious and Evil (nooo, the game ruined my kids!!) And that hair! Thank God it's hidden in a cap in the everyday outfit!

Little Andrea is still a child, but she's ready to age up! A quickly-arranged cake by Jane would do the trick, to avoid her sadness.

She grew up beautifully. I gave her the Party Animal Aspiration, which comes with the Gregarious trait (because, let's face it, she looks the part) and I gave her the Materialistic trait, as well.

As the Willow Creek Orphanage children grew up, they were becoming more and more different and their personalities shined through.

Antoine, who aspired to become a Painter Extraordinaire, began focusing on his painting skills.

But he also decided to take up the violin. What a creative sim!

Xavier, a Renaissance Sim, has been working on his painting skills as well, but he likes exercising too, especially when feeling energetic. Plus, he has taken a liking to the guitar!

And Jane is still cooking her great food! Recently, she wanted to prepare fried fish, so she even went fishing to make that dish. She has been focusing on her hobbies, while the children are out and stepping out ever so often to chat with the neighbors, so as not to feel so lonely during that time.

Meanwhile, being the oldest of the children, Xavier came from school earlier one day and grew up into a Young Adult, no party or anything (I gave him the Active trait).
Ready for Adult life, orphans must move out of the Orphanage. Hence, later that week the rest of the children said goodbye to Xavier as he embarked on the next phase of his life, away from the Willow Creek Orphanage.
As a Renaissance Sim, great things can be expected from him, after getting out of the Orphanage. Good luck, Xavier!

With a new slot in the household, the City sent another child to the Willow Creek Orphanage.

Meet baby Margarita, the first of the new Generation of Willow Creekers! (Here's to hoping she doesn't have black hair too!)

As teenagers, they come home from school exhausted and in desperate need of some fun. So, as time rolls by in the Willow Creek Orphanage, the children find themselves developing new hobbies.

 Tiffany has recently taken a liking to the Fitness skill, loving to be energized and working out while in that state.

As for Daniela, she has mostly been enjoying the swimming-pool...

As the week came to an end, it was time for various birthdays at the Willow Creek Orphanage. Jane was busy with all the preparations and cake-baking. She made an excellent Black and White cake! Way to go, Jane!

Our dear old Xavier attended the party! Adulthood had clearly changed him (cowboy hat and all) but the Willow Creek Orphanage was still his home. Jane was happy to be able to catch up with him. 

Little Margarita was the first to grow up into a child (with black hair, yes! I'm thinking glitch. Next time, I'll adopt a child with another hair color, instead of a baby). She is very cute, nevertheless.
I gave her the Rambunctious Scamp Aspiration and the Outgoing trait.

Then, it was time for Antoine to grow up. He looks just the same as a Young Adult (although he was a little sick). I gave him the Art Lover trait, since he wants to be a Painter Extraordinaire. Something good to add to the Gloomy and Squeamish traits.

Then, it was Tiffany's turn. I gave her the Loves Outdoors trait. Maybe I should have given her something like Evil, she always has that face!

The two new Young Adults enjoyed their party and the company of their foster brothers, until they had to set out into their new life, away from the Willow Creek Orphanage. Good luck!

And here's a pic of Bradly and little Margarita. I thought it was super cute that they got along so well.

To be continued...

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